New Expansion: The Grand Tournament (with card preview)

After firing up the hype machine for the better part of a month, Blizzard has announced a new 132 card expansion based on the Argent Tournament in World of Warcraft. The expansion is set to be released sometime next month.

New Mechanic

One thing of note is that they will be adding a new kind of card effect: inspire. Each time a person uses their hero power, if they have a card with the inspire effect, the card's power will trigger. You can if a card has a "inspire" effect by the flag icon at the bottom of their portrait similar to skull icon of the deathrattle.

New gameboard

New Cardback*

*= You can only get the cardback by pre-ording 50 expansion packs for $49.99

Preview

I love Hearthstone, but FIFTY DOLLARS for a card back!?!?!?! I'll just save up my gold to buy a bunch of packs at launch.

Curious to see how inspire ends up working out for abilities like lifetap as opposed to say fireblast/heal/whatever druid is called. the latter seems to combo better since they can effect the board in a more immediate fashion.

Shaman has me interested again!!!!

This is pretty tempting to buy into. Hearthstone is at it's best when a new expansion comes out in my opinion. People actually experiment rather than just netdeck the most popular decks. But still, its a lot of money just for a little bit of fun before things stagnate again. Maybe I'll like a new meta more than the one we had post GvG though...ugh I don't know. I loved playing before GvG, but just didn't enjoy it after. I guess I could bite the bullet and start grinding gold now so I can get most of it for free. The new shaman cards look cool at least. Nice to see they're focusing on something more useful than murlocks for that class now.

Inspire sounds neat, but also sounds like a buff to some classes more than others. I could see Warlocks, Control Warriors, and hunters getting the most use out of cards based on hero power since they'll be using it often anyway. Shamans maybe too if these totem cards are good enough. Mage and Rogue seem like they probably wouldn't want to be using some of their mana on hero power every turn unless these inspire cards are really strong. Priest and Druid seem a bit more inbetween. If they are in a position to make good trades with their power they'll use it often enough I guess.

Edit: Screw it, I'm buying back into this game. I miss it too much. Hopefully the popular deck archetypes in the meta get more fun with this expansion.

@mrmazz: Honestly I think lifetap will be the strongest out of the bunch. Maybe on par with Hunter's 2 damage a turn. They all have the same effect on the inspire trigger. So it just comes down to who gets the most out of spamming their power. Warlock would get a card and activate a card on the board (for example the random spell card draw). In that case they would draw two cards for the cost of 2 life. That's ridiculously good. Same with hunter. Hunter's burn you anyway with 2 damage a turn, so now they just add the ability to trigger cards as well without having to change what they are doing.

Whereas if you're rogue you equip a base weapon and then draw a spell card (or whatever else your inspire cards may do). Decent, but can get really awkward if you already have a buffed weapon equipped. In that case, triggering the board effect conflicts with what you have on already. Other's seem lackluster except in the correct scenario as well. 1 damage for mage isn't much unless it triggers something like enrage or can make a trade possible on the board. Otherwise you'll likely have another better 2 mana option. Unless the inspire(s) on your board are good enough to make it worth it even without the 1 damage making a difference of course. Which very well may be the case.

I already like this expansion more than GvG, if only because all GvG really did was add an extra minion subtype and Spare Parts, in terms of mechanics. Random cards in it turned out to be powerful (Dr. Boom, Piloted Shredder, Shield Maiden, many of the spells), but I'm not crazy about most of the deck archetypes it generated. It was just so Mech-focused that a lot of the cards don't have broad uses except specifically in Mech decks.

The previewed cards from The Grand Tournament strike me as more interesting mechanically already, even if some of them turn out to not be that useful once all is said and done.

@mentaldisruption: Here's a partial answer to the rogue problem with inspire. It's not great but it is something. Unfortunately, it does not combo well with things like blade flurray. And you will be a bit weaker to harrison and swamp ooze if you're trying to take advantage of the inspire mechanic.

@acura_max said:

@mentaldisruption: Here's a partial answer to the rogue problem with inspire. It's not great but it is something. Unfortunately, it does not combo well with things like blade flurray. And you will be a bit weaker to harrison and swamp ooze if you're trying to take advantage of the inspire mechanic.

Man, assuming you play that turn 6 (or turn 5 with Maiden of the Lake), I still feel like that takes forever to get going.

• Turn 6: play it then Hero Power, attack for 2
• Turn 7: Hero Power, attack for 3
• Turn 8: Hero Power, attack for 4

And that's a grand total of 10 mana spent, and it tied up a bunch of your mana on the two turns after you played it. Maybe it'll be worth your time in a really Inspire-heavy deck, but man, I dunno, Assassin's Blade is pretty good for only one mana more. Feels more like a rare to me than an epic.

@acura_max: Hmm kind of interesting, but not quite sure if that's worth it or not. I feel like it should be cheaper? There's a lot that can go wrong while you're building it up, and like bison said getting it to a decent place is pretty mana costly especially if you haven't drawn and played your inspires yet. It really just depends on what inspire cards the rogue has available to it I suppose. That legendary that gives a spellcard could be very very good for a rogue. Rogues that want to inspire may just have to build around the idea that they probably won't want to rely on having a card equipped in the weapon slot. Might affect the blade fury meta a little bit. Will be interesting to see how this affects deck building decisions for sure.

@bisonhero: GvG effectively added 2 cards to the game ultimately, Piloted Shredder and Dr. Boom.

Cool beans, lots of cards. Lots of dumb combos and such. I suspect Shaman will not become pre-eminent. I guess I might as well talk about the cards:

Since people are talking about it already, poisoned blade is obviously trash.

Sky Cap'n Cragg is whatever, not good enough to make Pirates viable.

Lock and Load kind of sucks, would be pretty good/potentially broken if it was hunter spells.

Maiden is a super cool card.

Coldarra Drake is a dumb combo card with good/fine stats.

Frost Giant is neat.

Lowly Squire seems okay, probably just an arena card.

Saraad would be good as a 5/5, no reason to use him as a 4/5 (outside of combo decks)

Totem Golem is good

Kodo Rider is solid

Effigy is weird/random, seems pretty good. Also means every other secret class is getting at least one secret.

Fallen Hero is solid, more combo-ey stuff.

Draenei Totem Carver seems okay, Fireguard Destroyer is a shitload better most of the time.

Tuskarr Totemic is probably alright in combo decks.

Thunder Bluff Valiant is okay.

Ball of Spiders sucks.

Why would they make an expansion of arguably the worst patch of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, especially when they could go with Icecrown Citadel or Ulduar? Hell, they should do a Black Temple expansion while they're at it, that would be really cool.

@random45: Probably because they know people will buy it regardless of how popular the source material for the theme was in WoW. They'll put them all out eventually. Why skip any idea for an expansion when each expansion they put out prints more money for them.

@random45: I think the Venn diagram of people who play Hearthstone and people who actually played WoW continuously enough to care about and get all of these references is two completely separate circles.

@random45: I think it's just to imply that Icecrown is coming.

@random45: Raids and dungeons are held for adventures, since they can make scenarios out of the bosses etc. The expansions are probably all just gonna be "thematic". Could you even imagine trying to make a 100+ card expansion purely based on a single raid ?

As for what we've seen so far, while the Inspire mechanic seems solid I think it's gonna come back to bite them. The thing that really tipped me off was Frodans comment saying something along the lines of "Most of the time when you use your hero power it means you're in a bad spot" and I literally bursted out "wait, what?!". Many of the most prominent decks at the moment relies heavily on using their hero power as much as possible, the decks are built specifically around getting more than face value out of them. Giving these decks even more power seems to be the complete opposite of what you'd want to do. Sure, it's gonna come down to what Inspire effects you can actually get, but still... if the keyword sticks around it'll eventually make for some ridiculous decks.

As for the cards I'd say most of them are "arena cards". Effigy seems to have some strong potential though, and Coldarra Drake would've been amazing if it wasn't mage only. Tuskarr Totemic and Totem Golem seem good, but they could easily be the Spider Tank/Blackwing Technician of the set.

Two new cards were shown at the Korean Hearthstone stream on on AfreecaTV. So there isn't an official English translation. So be wary of what you're seeing here.

That said, I would say that these 2 cards are pretty bad. Garrison Commander looks to be a card that won't be played for turn 3 at the very least if you want to take advantage of his effect. That's assuming that you don't want to use the coin on 3 mana.

For some reason, Silverhand Regent is not a paladin class card. This could be a problem with the translation. Assuming that it survives things such as wrath, fiery war axe, frostbolt, etc. there's really alot better options for a turn 3 and 4 play. Even on paladin it is not better than muster for battle followed by truesilver champion or piloted shredder. The plus side is that I don't have to worry about destroying light's justice if I want to play truesilver champion to take care of something on turn 4.

Another card was revealed on the hearthstone blog.

Now this one seems certainly more interesting. I can imagine this will do wonders will control decks such as control priest and warrior. Other builds which may benefit from this card are oil rogue with the 2/2 daggers, midrange with the increased damage output, and paladin if you have 2 quartermasters.

The biggest impact this card could have is probably the shaman. HS knows that there are times when I want spellpower totem instead of the 1/1 totem.

It will be interesting to see how this card will interact with the other cards that affect hero power such as Maiden of the Lake

I should really play this game.

@acura_max: Silver Hand Regent is pretty legit as a neutral card, though perhaps not in constructed; one of the better inspires I've seen so far.

Garrison commander is meh outside of combo decks.

Justicar Trueheart is really cool and really too slow for the all face all the time meta; also it just sucks for half of the classes (and is really good for some of the other ones). The graphic is nicely split between the ones that suck and the ones that don't(aside from Druid which is probably okay).

@acura_max: But what if I'm Jaraxxus or Ragnaros?

@bisonhero: You lived a turn as Ragnaros?

@bisonhero:

I just CANT spend real money on digital cards....I really want to like this game, but its just not fun losing 80% of my games. The RNG on getting a good hand with the standard cards seems so low. That or I just suck at making a good deck...I wouldnt rule that out. Either way, sadly I dont enjoy this game...And I prob should :-/

@fredchuckdave: You're missing the point.

Justicar Trueheart sounds amazing.

Here's a bummer. Justicar won't let you pick non-standard totems such as flametongue, mana tide totem, or the new totems.

It's not just a card back, it's 50 packs for $50 normally $50 gets you 40 packs.

RIP my Majordomo/Justicar deck I had planned up...

I feel like this is the expansion that's going to change things up the most, so far. Messing with the hero powers is... something else. I just have this feeling that it's going to get a lot more intense from this point onward. I like it! I lack the words to articulate what I'm talking about...

Now please don't release this expansion for as long as possible so I can grind out a ton of coins to fund my future pack purchases.

You're crazy.

Glaivezooka, flamecannon, shielded minibot, muster for battle, quartermaster, velen's chosen, lightbomb, tinker's sharpsword oil, crackle, dark bomb, imp-losion, kezan mystic, antique healbot all get used regularly even on the highest rungs of the ladder.

This isn't counting the various decks like mech mage, mecha shamman, demon lock etc, that had plenty of time under the sun.

@turambar: Healbot is one more card. Dark Bomb is just the new Soulfire, Crackle is trash, priest is trash in general, only muster is really good for paladin (shielded minibot is good but not like monstrous in every deck or anything), quartermaster kind of sucks now; also paladin isn't very popular, flamecannon is a dumb card that shouldn't be in the game, implosion is actually not that good of a card at the highest level and only briefly had a top tierish stint with sea giant zoo, tinker's is good, Kezan is dumb for the same reason BGH is dumb and resilience is dumb.

However Piloted Shredder is in 100% of decks and Dr. Boom is in about 85-90% of the non retard decks. Also I wasn't really talking about class cards and jokes are very elusive apparently.

There is a giant canyon between "I don't like these cards/classes so I don't play them" and "people don't play cards from that expansion." Also you seem to be searching for the mystical evergreen cards that will always be good in a deck even as the game state changes, which is absurd.

Couching a wrong statement as a joke does not make it any less wrong.

I've been thinking about all these cards they've shown and the problem is that most of them need to stick on the board for a while to gain value. This whole expansion seems to be based around that concept. The funny thing is that Hearthstone isn't played that way. You don't count on stuff being on the board for that long. So many of these cards are either snowball or "win more" cards. So I have to assume they're going to add cards like Sludge Belcher to slow the game down.

Justicar Trueheart seems like kind of a stealth nerf to Hunter and Warlock? Hunter—at least in its current incarnations—isn't looking to play this card. It's too slow and too easy to deal with considering the mana cost. And I can't see Warlocks cutting anything from their current decks to fit this in. Hell, in Handlock this would be a downright detriment. Though, Warlock is so versatile that maybe someone could make it work. The other classes new Hero Powers all seem decent but Priest and Warrior seem like they'll benefit the most. What does an aggro deck do against a class that is gaining 4 life a turn for 2 mana?

All in all seems really cool. I'm super pumped.

That Ball of spiders card is awful.

Watching the announcement live was pretty funny, a lot of audible heckling when some of the new cards were shown to be just more RNG. I really liked hearthstone a lot, but since GvG they added too many random elements, like unstable portal and shredder. If you saw some of the matches they played during the announcement, you can see just how ridiculous cards like Nexus-Champion Saarad are.

I don't know, I kinda realized if I didn't like the rng elements why am I playing a card game in the first place?

@plop1920: Every card game is rng based, true. Now, adding rng elements to an rng based game can get pretty damn chaotic and this is what hs have become.

I haven't played in a good while but the Kodorider card seems really, really good for something like a hunter.

@turambar: I mean when people talk about GvG they talk about Dr. Boom and Piloted Shredder. Healbot is a cool card; none of the other cards you mentioned are dominant in the slightest. Also healbot didn't really do shit to the meta, it just became increasingly more face over time, like it's in decks but it didn't slow down the game.

Even in the event that those cards were super relevant (they aren't) it's still like barely 10 cards out of 130 or whatever. And in BRM it's like 2-3 out of 30 even right when it came out. If you compare with Naxx where there were 20-25 useful cards out of 30 right out of the gate it gets pretty silly.

Kezan's is in like 20% of decks maybe (and is the deadest card in the game in 66% of the matchups), Healbot in 30% or so; don't think any other card you listed is higher than that. 4 neutral cards for one bigass expansion is pretty sad. Not to mention there's at least a dozen legendaries that never ever see play.

If we look at Echoing Ooze, one of the worst cards in Naxx, it's still better than almost every GvG card.

@plop1920:Ball of Spiders is 100% a Saraad/Nefarian card. It's made to produce Trolden videos.

@honkalot: Problem is that Kodorider is effectively an 8 mana card. You kinda have to add 2 to every one of these inspire cards. I'm thinking they'll do some kind of "the next time you use your hero power it costs 0" sort of Battlecry or spell to make up for this.

@fredchuckdave: There was an interview a couple months ago with one of the devs talking about how they had originally planned Piloted Shredder to be a 3/3 and when they made it a 4/3 they knew it was going to be an extremely strong card. They pretty much knew they were making an RNG Chillwind Yeti all along.

@hansolol: I guess in some sense Ball of Spiders is an arena card (or random generation), like an extra shitty sprint or nourish. If it was 3 webspinners with charge that would be solid.

@fredchuckdave: Darkbomb is a 2 of in every Handlock deck, Imp-losion is a 2 of in every Zoolock deck, Whirling Zapomatic is a 2 of in every Shaman deck, Tinker's Oil is a 2 of in every Rogue deck, Crackle is a 2 of in every Shaman deck

Shielded Minibot is a 2 of in every Paladin deck, Mechwarper and Cogmaster are 2 ofs in every Mech Mage/Shaman deck, Snowchugger and Powermace are 2 ofs in every Mech Mage/Shaman decks

Muster for Battle is played in Paladin decks, Glaivezooka is played in Hunter decks, Fel Reaver is played in Shaman decks, Mal'Ganis is played in Zoolock decks

And Naxx had like a dozen playable cards, not 25 lol.

Another 2 cards have been revealed on the Taiwanese Hearthstone stream. So let's get down to it.

Wilfred Fizziebang is a win more card or he's a card you play on turn 8 (7 with coin). There's no way a 4 health minion will survive on turn 6 and the only reason we use Piloted Sky Golem is because it has a deathrattle which summons another creature. On the other hand, if you were to tap into a mountain giant, molten giant, ysera or anything high cost, thats pretty good value since you can play a 4/4 and 7+ cost minion or spell.

Sacred Warrior is pretty good. It's like a lightwarden with the stats of a violent teacher or Archanai Soul Priest. I can this being combo'ed with something like circle of healing when it is played on turn four in combination with the cleric. Though it ever comes to that point you were kind of winning the game anyway.

The last card is a warrior weapon. It's not really good since there are only 2 taunts that come to mind when discussing taunts warrior uses: Plus, the card is a battle cry rather than an active effect. That means that you better have at least one taunt before turn 3 or you will be using this card as a high cost fiery war axe.

Also, another new card is being revealed today by the voting contest. so stay tuned!

@imsh_pl: Crackle definitely isn't a 2 of considering lightning bolt is better, I mean shaman is terrible so it doesn't actually matter but crackle is just an unreliable card ultimately. Zapomatic is not in every deck, hell in constructed it could be considered mediocre. Darkbomb is just the new soulfire as already stipulated, soulfire was removed from the game and darkbomb was added. Mechs are not much of a factor in general anymore aside from the magnificent shredder and occasional spider tank usage. Minibot is common but not universal (muster might be).

Naxx had Loatheb, Undertaker, Sludge Belcher, Echoing Ooze (still good in druid), Zombie Chow, Dark Cultist (better than literally every class card in GvG), Voidcaller (ditto, hell voidcaller is the only reason demon lock exists) Kel'Thuzad, Feugen/Stalagg (who are just as good as some of the crappier cards you're mentioning), Unstable Ghoul, Spectral Knight, Death Lord, Haunted Creeper, Nerubian Egg, Death's Bite, Avenge, Duplicate, Webspinner, Mad Scientist (which is certainly up there amongst the best cards in the game to date); which is more than half of the cards compared to GvG and Blackrock where it's less than 10% at best.

Why would Mal'Ganis be in a Zoolock deck?

Wait... you said Fel Reaver. You said Fel Reaver. You said Fel Reaver...

@fredchuckdave: I didn't just pull these numbers out of my ass, they come from actual decks that are being played in tournaments right now.

http://teamarchon.com/news/81-atlc-week-1---decklists
http://teamarchon.com/news/93-atlc-week-2---decklists
http://teamarchon.com/news/106-atlc-week-3---decklists
http://teamarchon.com/news/115-atlc-week-4---decklists

You might not be as knowledgeable about the Hearthstone meta as you think you are...

Crackle is much better than LB since it can kill more than just 2 drops, Darkbomb is much better in Handlock than Soulfire since it's reliable. Minibot is THE card which defines Paladin's early game, much, much more reliable than Muster which has become weaker in a meta full of Patron warrior because a)it's just fodder for Patrons and Frothings b)dies to all Whirlwind effects and c)most of the decks play Harrison to counter Patron warrior which is devastating against the 1/4 from Muster.

Dark Cultist is great but Priest isn't played enough for it to have an impact on the meta, nobody plays or ever played Stalagg/Feugen in a competitive deck lol, Avenge has never been a thing since aggro Paladin is much weaker than other aggro decks, Deathlord has been experimented with but it never has been consistent enough. So yeah, a dozen good cards. Better than Blackrock, yes, a great expansion, yes, but no 25 out of 30 lol.

Mal'Ganis is played in Zoolock because of Imp Gang Boss, Imp-Losion, Doomguard, Voidcaller, Flame Imp, Voidwalker, and the recent Bane of Doom buff (more accurately a Zoolock with a splash of Demonlock).

Are you actually using any current data about the meta to make these judgments about what cards have had an impact or are you just using your rank 15 expert assessment.

@fredchuckdave: The classic Zoo that is based solely on small minions and tops out at Doomguard is pretty much dead. The current one that you'll see looks like this. For some reason the old Demonlock deck made by SIlentstorm back in January took a backseat when Imp Gangboss came out and everyone decided Midrange Zoo was better. I don't know, I've never really been a Zoo player.

Current Mech Shaman came out maybe 2 or 3 months ago. It's kind of like a slightly more stable Face Hunter. It sticks a few things on the board but pretty much just wants to go face and then burn you out with spells. Similar to Face Hunter it doesn't really care about card advantage or board advantage. If Fel Reaver burns all your cards but gets to go face for 8 or 16 that's usually enough.

@imsh_pl: Ah the classic Rank 15 argument, well done.

@hansolol: Ah I see. I wouldn't classify that as zoo but as some sort of hybrid demon/zoo deck but if zoo is a more common moniker than so be it. I've played Silentstorm like 15 times between arena and tavern brawl and have since early closed beta, always a fun match; dunno why the hearthstone matching system puts us together.

@fredchuckdave: Did you miss the part where I link to the thing which shows why I'm right, and did you miss the part where you were supposed to link to the thing which shows that you're right?

A wild card appears!

And it's not really great. I suspect this card will be the Force Tank Max of the expansion. It's good for new players, but it won't see play in the higher ranks. It's a good arena card though since it has a big body and a decent effect.

@acura_max: Every time I see a new Big Game Hunter target I can't help but cringe. :( I agree about it being nice in arena where your opponent isn't guaranteed a BGH, but in constructed its just a 9 mana BGH bait that also does 4 damage. There are so many cheaper options that can pretty much do the same. If the meta would ever slow down and become focused on playing big bodies late game it might be cool I guess? But that's almost certainly not happening any time soon sadly.

I feel like I'm going to have to use Sacred Warrior in every deck just because of that artwork. Damn that's nice looking. Combined with the priests healing able to be doubled now i could see this being pretty good, but probably not a guaranteed in every priest deck kinda card like Cultist. My initial thought was I wish it was 4 attack so that I could dodge mirror match pain/death spells, but then I realized it said any character healed, so keeping it at 4 would actually be a bit tricky. Seems neat. As a priest player it's the first card that's brought a bit of a sparkle to my eye in this expansion aside from the hero power buff.

Hopefully Warlocks get some better new toys to play with than Wilfred :\

@acura_max: If it was like 9 mana 6/6 deal 6 damage that would be alright, pretty terrible as is. Force Tank is immensely better.

@acura_max: That'll be perfect in my things-that-do-damage-outside-of-attacking deck

Yeah, I only play silly decks

Warrior is my favorite class and I've been trying to think of some good cards that could fit into the control deck.

I'd like some kind of "Inspire: Your hero is immune while attacking this turn." It would make a lot more sense in Warrior than in Hunter. It would make face tanking giants in the early game for Execute less painful.

Also, "Inspire: Give your weapon +1/+1." This would be awesome. It'd help against early aggro minions when you only have 1 weapon and it'd also be decent in the late game when you're trying to get the enemy down to 12-14 health for the Grom finisher.

No, that seems to be literally just you.

Healbot is a cool card; none of the other cards you mentioned are dominant in the slightest.

Do you actually play this game?

Also healbot didn't really do shit to the meta, it just became increasingly more face over time, like it's in decks but it didn't slow down the game.

What does changing the meta have to do with being a card people use regularly?

Even in the event that those cards were super relevant (they aren't) it's still like barely 10 cards out of 130 or whatever. And in BRM it's like 2-3 out of 30 even right when it came out. If you compare with Naxx where there were 20-25 useful cards out of 30 right out of the gate it gets pretty silly.

Naxx cards used with some degree of regularity: Death's bite, Void Caller, zombie chow, haunted creeper, nerubian egg, mad scientist, sludge belcher, loatheb (kind of.) There are a few others that show up much more seldomly. Hardly the 20-25 you're imagining. In addition, this speaks to the general strength of the deathrattle mechanic that isn't so easily replicated in other sets. To look at the card quality of Naxx as the norm as opposed to an anomaly would be foolish. In a card game, evergreen cards (or anything approaching that) should be rare.

As for BRM, while it certainly did not set the world on fire, in terms of cards being regularly used, quick shot, flamewaker, imp gang boss, grim patron, and Thaurissan all fit the bill. Blackwing tech, blackwing corruptor, and gang up are rarer, but still exist. Hardly as poor as you're attempting to paint it.

Kezan's is in like 20% of decks maybe (and is the deadest card in the game in 66% of the matchups), Healbot in 30% or so; don't think any other card you listed is higher than that. 4 neutral cards for one bigass expansion is pretty sad.

Your laser focus on only neutral cards is also incredibly puzzling considering class cards account for about 2/5th of the game.

Not to mention there's at least a dozen legendaries that never ever see play.

Does Naxx, the thing you seem to treat as the best thing since sliced bread, see anything other than Loatheb get played?

If we look at Echoing Ooze, one of the worst cards in Naxx, it's still better than almost every GvG card.

Oh you, you're such a card.